Skill Bar Independence and UI Options

Aimeryan

Technically this is not class-skill specific, however, it is related to how we go about using the class skills. Furthermore, I couldn't find a sub-forum specific to UI discussion, so this will do.

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Background

The skill bars are currently formed of two bars of five skills + an ultimate. Technically, there are therefore ten skills + two ultimates. However, there are several issues here.

To change skills bars you have to switch weapons (why?). The weapon swap has many issues of its own, most of them to do with when the game decides you are allowed to queue it up to occur when next possible (shouldn't that be up to the player?). I could dedicate a thread to solving such issues, but this is not the intention of this thread. Still, these need solving for their own reasons.

This thread is dedicated to the skill bar usage themselves. The skill bars being tied to weapon swapping means that as long as weapon swapping is not on demand, you do not have on-demand access to all ten skills. This causes frustration with the unreliability of not necessarily be able to react quickly to needing to use the skills on the other bar as they are locked behind a weapon swap, as well as how unresponsive it can feel. A lot of players give up on trying to use both skill bars due to such frustration to get around this. However, it is optimal to use all ten skills - so the issue becomes enjoyability vs. optimality, which is never good.

Relevance

There perhaps is a need here for the developers to state whether the game is meant to be played with five skills or ten. If the former, with the other skill bar perhaps being a whole new role and thus not something to weave into combat on a regular basis, well then maybe the current system is fine (although the weapon swap issues still need solving). If the latter, then the game, or more specifically the UI, needs to be more accommodating to the player in regards to using all ten skills. I am going to proceed as if the latter, because if the former then there is no need for this thread at all.

Suggestions

As mentioned, as long as the skill bar swap is tied to the weapon swap and assuming the weapon swap is meant to be an action all of its own and thus can be delayed if currently already performing an action, the skill bar swap will feel slow and unresponsive.

So, my first suggestion is to untie the skill bar swap from the weapon swap.

My second suggestion is for UI customisation of how the ten skills are displayed and accessed. I put forward that two options should be available to the player to personally choose as they like (probably from interface options):

Option 1. Two skill bars of five skills and an ultimate, one replacing the other via a keybind. This is similar to the current system, except the keybind would not be related to the weapon swap and that the bars could be switched between smoothly and at will.

Option 2. One skill bar of ten skills and two ultimates. Keybindings available for each separately.

Regarding passives and experience gain related to what is on the bars; all slots should be counted at the same time. This will likely mean some modification to such passives and possibly to the experience gain, but I have no doubt it can reasonably be balanced.

Discussion

So what do people think?

I know there will be people who wish to argue about the intention of the skill bars as listed under relevance - but this unknown to us until a developer speaks up, so arguing about this is fruitless. Therefore, I would prefer if people proceed as if the intention is for all ten skills to be accessible freely and smoothly - if this is not the case then the developers will disregard these suggestions anyway.

Aimeryan

Hmm, maybe I made it too long for people to read!

TL;DR - Would people like the skill bar swap to be untied from the weapon swap allowing all ten skills to be accessed easily and quickly without frustration?

Another alternative would be for the weapon swap (tied to the skill bar swap) to occur whenever without consideration of whatever else is currently occurring. However, this has other side-effects that may be unwanted: the swapping of a weapon in the middle of doing something else would probably seem unrealistic (not too bothered about this myself, but...), and it would also of course mean quicker access between the weapons as well as the skill slots (which is not the intention I am necessarily going for).

Khazaad

I empathize greatly with this thread.

I also believe weapon swapping is supposed to offer an additional tactical element to the game. It's not meant to simply give you more keys so I understand why the act of swapping is involved.

This is preemptive TLDR...

If the above is true, problems with animation queuing seem to interfere with the functioning of weapon swapping.

Fundamentally, I do not believe animations are supposed to affect, influence, or interfere with gameplay in ANY (ANY!) video game unless the animation runs purposefully layered with one or more deliberately engineered functions. (a spell has a 3 second animation and a 3 second cast time.) Gathering for example is not meant to be instantaneous. I don't think swapping is meant to be instantaneous either but I don't believe the inconsistencies that interfere with it are deliberate either.

Aimeryan

A particularly agree that weapon swapping should be an action of its own, similar to casting a spell or swinging a sword. Right now there are issues with the weapon swapping and how it queues - it is far from a smooth experience. Were these to be sorted out then weapon swapping would be something I think most would enjoy as being an action of its own.

However, the display (and access) of the skill bars is a UI element, not an action. This UI change is tied to the weapon swap action, presumably because it offered one less keybind requirement (consoles). There are lots of cases where tying a UI change to an action makes sense, because they are heavily related and dependent on each other. We do not know if the skill bars are meant to be specifically tied to swapping your weapon or not (in doesn't really make any sense, for one) - this is something we will have to wait for the developers to tell us. We can, however, proceed as if this is simply the way it currently is and that it is open to change if the benefits of which make sense to do so.

This game has some wierd UI interactions; animations can be cancelled (yet still result in the action taking place) by certain things, but not others. Template abilities (lightning splash for example) will not show the template until you are ready to cast it (causing queueing frustration), and doing anything else in between cancels the whole thing - the amount of time I spend fighting with the UI to get the lightning splash skill to cast during an intensive fight must be excessive. There are definitely improvements to be made in regards to the UI. One of which I feel is how we display and access the ten skills.

Shaun98ca2

The Weapon Swap is a HUGE topic that pretty much until a dev steps in and tells every one what they intended its all how you look at it really.

If you look at Weapon Swap as a role change it makes a LOT more sense.

The actual weaving of the "10 abilities" is very difficult and in my opinion not even worth the trouble.

Weapon Swapping requires 2 different weapons whether its the same weapon type or not.

To me it seems the devs built the game for the "average gamer" and the "average gamer" wouldn't want to have to constantly be swapping weapons during combat just to be viable.

Weapon Swapping DOES allow you to completely change your role so the restrictions the weapon swapping imposes makes sense.

Since I only use Weapon Swapping as a role change I find it works really well even during combat...basically find a moment to stop what your doing and change weapons/build.

Your going to find a LOT of people try to use weapon swapping to make 1 complete build and trying to weave the 10 abilities together, and that's usually where the complaints come from.

The only conclusion I can truly come up with is the 10 abilities were never meant to be weaved together as most people wouldn't want to play that way to be viable.

Think of it as steroids. You don't HAVE to take steroids to compete but you do have to take them to be viable if others your competing against are taking them.

Aimeryan

As I said, any talk of the developer's intention will be fruitless, by its nature. What I can say is that I believe a lot of people will enjoy the game more if the UI helps them to do so.

Personally, I am of like mind that weapon swapping should be significant in some manner - although the developers are apparently completely fine with the idea of using two of the same weapon (there is even an ingame loading-screen tip that you can do this).

I do not, however, apply that same thought to the skill bars, which I see as independent of the weapon (this would be different if the skills on the skill bars were weapon-specific only). The fact they are currently tied together is insignificant as it does not imply intention, just implementation.

The skill slots being broken into two bars that swap may simply show the manner of which the developers have approached the keybinding issues involving console users. That they tied this to the weapon swap may be just another way of cutting down on the number of keybinds. However, as I listed in the OP, this causes issues which I would like to solve by untying the skill bars from the weapon swap.

Back to my original point, we can't know the developer's intentions - we can only show that they are not necessarily what people think they are. We can, however, look at what could be done and allow the developers to make those decisions.

Shaun98ca2

Aimeryan wrote: »

As I said, any talk of the developer's intention will be fruitless, by its nature. What I can say is that I believe a lot of people will enjoy the game more if the UI helps them to do so.

Personally, I am of like mind that weapon swapping should be significant in some manner - although the developers are apparently completely fine with the idea of using two of the same weapon (there is even an ingame loading-screen tip that you can do this).

I do not, however, apply that same thought to the skill bars, which I see as independent of the weapon (this would be different if the skills on the skill bars were weapon-specific only). The fact they are currently tied together is insignificant as it does not imply intention, just implementation.

The skill slots being broken into two bars that swap may simply show the manner of which the developers have approached the keybinding issues involving console users. That they tied this to the weapon swap may be just another way of cutting down on the number of keybinds. However, as I listed in the OP, this causes issues which I would like to solve by untying the skill bars from the weapon swap.

Back to my original point, we can't know the developer's intentions - we can only show that they are not necessarily what people think they are. We can, however, look at what could be done and allow the developers to make those decisions.

So how would you look at the weapon swap if everything was the same except the ability to use the same weapon types IE 2 destroy staffs?

lajnus86b16_ESO

If think some spells especially skills that aint tied to the weapon, but guild/class, should be able to be used from stance 2 even if you are in stance 1.

allow the pc to bind have 12 keybinds(2bars) to use them responsively.
this would also make using same weapon stronger in some situations, but also give it some weakness aswell.

Sylveria_Relden

lajnus86b16_ESO wrote: »

If think some spells especially skills that aint tied to the weapon, but guild/class, should be able to be used from stance 2 even if you are in stance 1.

allow the pc to bind have 12 keybinds(2bars) to use them responsively.
this would also make using same weapon stronger in some situations, but also give it some weakness aswell.

I agree- that if the interface is to remain "restricted" we should be able to keybind the abilities. I don't think it's going to happen, because of how it's designed to be used with console input controllers, and not with keyboards. Next thing you know the console players would be whining that they cannot access more than 6 abilities at once, too. (wash, rinse, repeat) Essentially it's a circular argument- ZOS chose this path, and unless they program a different UI for each platform, it's going to remain the way it is now.

Aimeryan

Well, as I mentioned my suggestion effectively solves the issue for all platforms - untie the skill bar swap from the weapon swap. This would allow you to switch skill bars as you want without delay, regardless of platform. All is fair and equal. The only slight negative is that it would require one additional keybind (the skill bar swap).

Regarding whether the skills bars should be swapped or displayed (and accessed) at the same time, my suggestion for Options 1 & 2 would allow the user to choose as they desire, maybe from say the interface options. There are disadvantages and benefits to both, so it makes sense to allow the user the option they would most prefer.

lajnus86b16_ESO wrote: »

If think some spells especially skills that aint tied to the weapon, but guild/class, should be able to be used from stance 2 even if you are in stance 1.

Yeah. Essentially, the skills that are nothing to do with the weapon shouldn't be dependent on the weapon. Weapon-specific skills (Destructive Touch, Snipe, Flurry, etc.) wouldn't be usable without that weapon-type currently active, anyhow.

So, the skill bar has no need to be tied to the weapon swap. That it is currently is either a decision the developers purposely made or merely the current method of implementation. The former, we can not know until told. The latter, however, we can offer alternatives for - i.e., this thread.

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

Aimeryan wrote: »

As I said, any talk of the developer's intention will be fruitless, by its nature. What I can say is that I believe a lot of people will enjoy the game more if the UI helps them to do so.

Personally, I am of like mind that weapon swapping should be significant in some manner - although the developers are apparently completely fine with the idea of using two of the same weapon (there is even an ingame loading-screen tip that you can do this).

I do not, however, apply that same thought to the skill bars, which I see as independent of the weapon (this would be different if the skills on the skill bars were weapon-specific only). The fact they are currently tied together is insignificant as it does not imply intention, just implementation.

The skill slots being broken into two bars that swap may simply show the manner of which the developers have approached the keybinding issues involving console users. That they tied this to the weapon swap may be just another way of cutting down on the number of keybinds. However, as I listed in the OP, this causes issues which I would like to solve by untying the skill bars from the weapon swap.

Back to my original point, we can't know the developer's intentions - we can only show that they are not necessarily what people think they are. We can, however, look at what could be done and allow the developers to make those decisions.

So how would you look at the weapon swap if everything was the same except the ability to use the same weapon types IE 2 destroy staffs?

No differently - weapon swapping would still be what it is; a change of weapon (in this case, guaranteed to also be a change of type).

ArgonianAssassin

I'd greatly prefer option 1.

WhiteQueen

@Sylveria_Relden‌ wrote:

ZOS chose this path, and unless they program a different UI for each platform, it's going to remain the way it is now.

Oh my god. I've actually been saying this for a while now. Why didn't they take the extra time to code two different UIs? As it is, PC users are gimped for console convenience. But the reverse isn't the same. *sighs*

/Disappointed.

gimmethecreepsb14_ESO

Look, Why don't we just cut through the eloquent "breakdown of options" ...Some of you want to be able to use 10 abilities (and 2 ultimates) with 1 weapon. This was not the intent of ESO. World of Warcraft and Rift let you do stuff like that, ESO wants you to have to strategize this way with a smaller bar and pick and choose how to use them. The weapon swapping is meant to be complicated and make it possible to further influence creativity by seeing how you'd set up your bars, where certain powers would help/hurt the most, and decide what weapons work best for you. ES games have always been restrictive by nature in the way you can and can't "strategize" for combat. Remember, In elder scrolls 1 player games (and yes I know, different genre) You had to remove a weapon or off-hand item (other weapon or shield) to cast magic. So you'll have to forgive me if I find this system a little less restrictive.

ZO wants combat to be fast paced and a bit messy. They want you to have to quickly decide if you should use a power or cycle bars to take another. They dont want you to have 10 powers at your disposal at any given time, they want you to have 5 (plus the ulti's of course) This actually improves on the pace of the game and the strategy of developing your character. They want you to have to pick and choose abilities and have other people playing the same class as you, in the same role as you, picking and choosing different abilities in different dungeons and whatnot. They want you to have to change your bars constantly to fit new obstacles, and having 1 weapon, 10 skills and 2 ultimates really doesnt do that. (You'd be able to fit all 5 weapon powers and 5 other powers at a time. Plus have 2 ultimates at your disposal with a single click.)

Aimeryan

gimmethecreepsb14_ESO wrote: »

Look, Why don't we just cut through the eloquent "breakdown of options" ...Some of you want to be able to use 10 abilities (and 2 ultimates) with 1 weapon. This was not the intent of ESO. World of Warcraft and Rift let you do stuff like that, ESO wants you to have to strategize this way with a smaller bar and pick and choose how to use them. The weapon swapping is meant to be complicated and make it possible to further influence creativity by seeing how you'd set up your bars, where certain powers would help/hurt the most, and decide what weapons work best for you. ES games have always been restrictive by nature in the way you can and can't "strategize" for combat. Remember, In elder scrolls 1 player games (and yes I know, different genre) You had to remove a weapon or off-hand item (other weapon or shield) to cast magic. So you'll have to forgive me if I find this system a little less restrictive.

ZO wants combat to be fast paced and a bit messy. They want you to have to quickly decide if you should use a power or cycle bars to take another. They dont want you to have 10 powers at your disposal at any given time, they want you to have 5 (plus the ulti's of course) This actually improves on the pace of the game and the strategy of developing your character. They want you to have to pick and choose abilities and have other people playing the same class as you, in the same role as you, picking and choosing different abilities in different dungeons and whatnot. They want you to have to change your bars constantly to fit new obstacles, and having 1 weapon, 10 skills and 2 ultimates really doesnt do that. (You'd be able to fit all 5 weapon powers and 5 other powers at a time. Plus have 2 ultimates at your disposal with a single click.)

I've already said; please don't get bogged down with intention - that is NOT what this thread is for. You can't know what the developers want; they haven't told you, they haven't told me. I've already been through what the current implementation means; it doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means.

If the developers do want it exactly as you have described, then why did you bother posting? They aren't going to change anything in that case. You telling us this is what they want is meaningless. If you wish to post, please be more constructive - otherwise you are merely wasting people's time.

gimmethecreepsb14_ESO

1. Don't get bogged down by intention = Please don't defeat my argument. That's like a religious zealot telling an atheist to prove God doesn't exist. I'm pretty positive EVERYBODY knows what the developers want, because had they wanted to give you 10 ability slots and stand-alone weapon-swapping, they'd have done it. Do you think they accidentally set it up this way and messed up, or didn't know how to set up 10 ability slots and give players the ability to swap weapons seperately? Dark Age of Camelot already figured out that trick, almost 15 years ago in gaming. And the lead designer of DAoC (Matt Firor) is now the Director of TESO. Ironically, he designed a game that had 10 ability slots and weapon swapping (once again, DAoC) and this game does not do that. So It's blatantly obvious to say his intent was NOT to do what he had done in DAoC and use that sort of mechanic.

2. How's this for constructive: Think about how overpowered Sorcerer's would be if you gave them 10 ability slots and seperate weapon swapping. Also most sorcerers at higher levels use the pets less because they will have to switch bars and lose their pets, unless they keep pets on both bars. So now A sorc can have both pets and bound armor up all at once, have no risk of losing it, and run 7 abilities all at once. Magelight ability could be constantly active in pvp, so melee stealth DPS would pretty much just stop existing... but I'm sure you thought of those factors...

Shaun98ca2

gimmethecreepsb14_ESO wrote: »

1. Don't get bogged down by intention = Please don't defeat my argument. That's like a religious zealot telling an atheist to prove God doesn't exist. I'm pretty positive EVERYBODY knows what the developers want, because had they wanted to give you 10 ability slots and stand-alone weapon-swapping, they'd have done it. Do you think they accidentally set it up this way and messed up, or didn't know how to set up 10 ability slots and give players the ability to swap weapons seperately? Dark Age of Camelot already figured out that trick, almost 15 years ago in gaming. And the lead designer of DAoC (Matt Firor) is now the Director of TESO. Ironically, he designed a game that had 10 ability slots and weapon swapping (once again, DAoC) and this game does not do that. So It's blatantly obvious to say his intent was NOT to do what he had done in DAoC and use that sort of mechanic.

2. How's this for constructive: Think about how overpowered Sorcerer's would be if you gave them 10 ability slots and seperate weapon swapping. Also most sorcerers at higher levels use the pets less because they will have to switch bars and lose their pets, unless they keep pets on both bars. So now A sorc can have both pets and bound armor up all at once, have no risk of losing it, and run 7 abilities all at once. Magelight ability could be constantly active in pvp, so melee stealth DPS would pretty much just stop existing... but I'm sure you thought of those factors...

Well explaining anything to anybody doesn't mean anything no matter how much your info might make sense. The only thing that will make people listen is a straight up developer coming out and answer questions. These questions have probably been answered a long time ago but now its next to impossible to get an answer to anything.

1. Half the community thinks the ability bar is restricted due to consoles but...
You can explain is due to the limitation of your left hand on the WASD keys during combat

2. Another large portion is very confused by Weapon Swapping. They see you can use the same weapon type in both slots and are VERY confused by that. They are trying to weave 2 separate builds into one. The game goes out of its way to prevent this and that is very frustrating cause they cant understand WHY. They don't want to believe that developers designed the game with the intent of you using 5 abilities and 1 ultimate. So with weapon swap they try to make it 10 abilities and 2 ultimates and the weapon swap is just getting in the way.


A developer can explain the system but it wont matter because they will get called stupid and told that the system is stupid because people just simply do not like it.

If somebody CANT understand why its 1-5 TRY playing the game hitting keys 6-0 while keeping you hand on WASD.

And as for weapon swapping again MOST people WOULDNT like this game having to switch hotbars every couple of seconds in combat to "get more abilities" having to switch horbars to be viable.

But it would take a developer to explain this. I guess you have to ask yourself is how did BETA testers let Weapon Swapping get this bad. Its seems people are having trouble with a design flaw not a bugg.

Aimeryan

Guys, if you are going to only go on about intention, please leave. This thread is not for that.

MoMoOG

gimmethecreepsb14_ESO wrote: »

1. Don't get bogged down by intention = Please don't defeat my argument. That's like a religious zealot telling an atheist to prove God doesn't exist. I'm pretty positive EVERYBODY knows what the developers want, because had they wanted to give you 10 ability slots and stand-alone weapon-swapping, they'd have done it. Do you think they accidentally set it up this way and messed up, or didn't know how to set up 10 ability slots and give players the ability to swap weapons seperately? Dark Age of Camelot already figured out that trick, almost 15 years ago in gaming. And the lead designer of DAoC (Matt Firor) is now the Director of TESO. Ironically, he designed a game that had 10 ability slots and weapon swapping (once again, DAoC) and this game does not do that. So It's blatantly obvious to say his intent was NOT to do what he had done in DAoC and use that sort of mechanic.

2. How's this for constructive: Think about how overpowered Sorcerer's would be if you gave them 10 ability slots and seperate weapon swapping. Also most sorcerers at higher levels use the pets less because they will have to switch bars and lose their pets, unless they keep pets on both bars. So now A sorc can have both pets and bound armor up all at once, have no risk of losing it, and run 7 abilities all at once. Magelight ability could be constantly active in pvp, so melee stealth DPS would pretty much just stop existing... but I'm sure you thought of those factors...

If we were 100% sure the developers wanted you to use 5 abilities at any given time then logically they wouldn't have allowed you to even switch the weapon during combat. Or at the least, put a cool down on weapon swap like guild wars 2 did. Right now its pretty gray as to what the developers want. You can switch in combat with zero cool down given the impression that maybe they want to give you access to all 10. However, at the same time switching weapons is so clumsy/unresponsive that it then makes you question if they wanted to freely give you access to 10 abilities.

Now another argument against "had they wanted to give you 10 ability slots and stand-alone weapon-swapping, they'd have done it.", could simply be that the developers want to limit clutter in the UI has they have done with various other elements in the UI. Having only 6 abilities slots displayed over 12 definitely makes for cleaner UI.

ElSlayer

Long story short - consoles.

Blackhorne

Aimeryan wrote: »

I know there will be people who wish to argue about the intention of the skill bars as listed under relevance - but this unknown to us until a developer speaks up, so arguing about this is fruitless. Therefore, I would prefer if people proceed as if the intention is for all ten skills to be accessible freely and smoothly - if this is not the case then the developers will disregard these suggestions anyway.

I agree that arguing about what the developers intended is fruitless. However, given that the developers' intent is key to the likelihood of any of the changes you suggest, it's equally pointless to proceed on the assumption that their intent is either one way or the other.

In other words, your argument that arguing intent is fruitless logically means that your desired outcome of a conversation based on an assumption of intent is equally fruitless.

In other words, your own position renders this discussion [as you presented it, anyway] pointless.

Aimeryan

No, the suggestions are pointless IF the intention is for things to stay as they are. Basically, there is a chance this is all pointless, yes. However, arguing about the intention itself is always going to be pointless.

Shaun98ca2

MoMoOG wrote: »

gimmethecreepsb14_ESO wrote: »

1. Don't get bogged down by intention = Please don't defeat my argument. That's like a religious zealot telling an atheist to prove God doesn't exist. I'm pretty positive EVERYBODY knows what the developers want, because had they wanted to give you 10 ability slots and stand-alone weapon-swapping, they'd have done it. Do you think they accidentally set it up this way and messed up, or didn't know how to set up 10 ability slots and give players the ability to swap weapons seperately? Dark Age of Camelot already figured out that trick, almost 15 years ago in gaming. And the lead designer of DAoC (Matt Firor) is now the Director of TESO. Ironically, he designed a game that had 10 ability slots and weapon swapping (once again, DAoC) and this game does not do that. So It's blatantly obvious to say his intent was NOT to do what he had done in DAoC and use that sort of mechanic.

2. How's this for constructive: Think about how overpowered Sorcerer's would be if you gave them 10 ability slots and seperate weapon swapping. Also most sorcerers at higher levels use the pets less because they will have to switch bars and lose their pets, unless they keep pets on both bars. So now A sorc can have both pets and bound armor up all at once, have no risk of losing it, and run 7 abilities all at once. Magelight ability could be constantly active in pvp, so melee stealth DPS would pretty much just stop existing... but I'm sure you thought of those factors...

If we were 100% sure the developers wanted you to use 5 abilities at any given time then logically they wouldn't have allowed you to even switch the weapon during combat. Or at the least, put a cool down on weapon swap like guild wars 2 did. Right now its pretty gray as to what the developers want. You can switch in combat with zero cool down given the impression that maybe they want to give you access to all 10. However, at the same time switching weapons is so clumsy/unresponsive that it then makes you question if they wanted to freely give you access to 10 abilities.

Now another argument against "had they wanted to give you 10 ability slots and stand-alone weapon-swapping, they'd have done it.", could simply be that the developers want to limit clutter in the UI has they have done with various other elements in the UI. Having only 6 abilities slots displayed over 12 definitely makes for cleaner UI.

Weapon Swap only feels "clumsy" when you play with it with the "wrong intent".

The people trying to get access to all 10 abilities "see issues" it.

It you simply use the Weapon Swap as a build change during combat to change your role/build then the Weapon Swap starts to appear to be working "just fine".

I can only attest to using Weapon Swap in a dungeon for a quick role change during combat quickly changing from Healer to DPS and then back to Healer again. For that sole intent and purpose Weapon Swap worked perfectly.

Im overly confident Weapon Swap was meant for a role change during combat all signs point towards that and I probably even read somewhere from developers during beta what their intent was with Weapon Swap. But unfortunately without proof its pretty meaningless.

Kililin

Problem with weapon swap imho:
It should show a consistent and reproducible behavior, which it is not.

Shaun98ca2

Kililin wrote: »

Problem with weapon swap imho:
It should show a consistent and reproducible behavior, which it is not.

Please elaborate.

I have heard some complaints about Weapon Swap that I didn't get change to reply to cause it was WAY to late like a guy complaining you cant Weapon Swap while using the weapon with a Heavy attack...he complained you have to wait till the attack is over......well no duh.

But plz elaborate I would like to see what people are finding wrong with it. It could be an over looked DUH like the above example or a legitimate issue.

Aimeryan

Although the intention of this thread is not to talk about the issues surrounding the weapon swap (there are other threads dedicated to this), I will say that the issues are largely to do with consistency of queueing.

If you try to use any ability, you will queue the ability to perform as soon as possible. If you are currently doing nothing, or performing a light attack, that ability will be used immediately (because this is as soon as possible in this case). If you are performing another ability at the time, the ability that is queued will occur afterwards. This is the case no matter when you press the keybind for that action - it always queues, one way or another.

The weapon swap doesn't behave like this. It is an action, like the abilities are, but you are not always allowed to queue up the weapon swap to occur as soon as possible. If you are doing a heavy attack, it wont queue. If you are in the casting portion of an ability, it wont queue. However, if you are in the animation portion of an ability, it will queue. Similarly, the same with a light attack.

That inconsistency in when the queue can occur is what drives people mad. It is what causes frustration and much time wasting trying to get the weapon swap to perform. The fix is obvious - make it queue in the exact same manner that other actions queue.

Another issue is that it is very easy to "double" weapon swap, since the timeout on the action is almost non-existent. Add in that there is no way to know if the weapon swap is queued or not, and the fact it doesn't happen instantly, people will often hit the keybind again thinking they need to. What then happens is a misery of frustration as you see it swap and then swap back. The fix is again quite obvious - increase the timeout on the action to the point that the weapon swap will likely have already at least started to have occurred - say at least half a second.

~~~

If the weapon swap performed nicely, would there be a need for this thread? Well, maybe not.

If the weapon swap performed nicely then you could near guarantee access to your other five abilities within 0.5 seconds after the end of the current action. This means the delay between be able to use an ability currently on your bar and an ability on the other bar would only be at most 0.5 seconds.

Indeed, I get the feeling this was the intention of the developers given that they made the weapon swap perform very quickly and without cooldown. I would say the current difficultly in consistently queueing the weapon swap is more akin to a bug than a design choice (who would purposely design a UI action to be so frustrating?). However, I will follow my own advice here and say that I can't know the intention of the developers until they tell me.

midnight_tea

Im overly confident Weapon Swap was meant for a role change during combat all signs point towards that and I probably even read somewhere from developers during beta what their intent was with Weapon Swap.

Actually, one of the advices we sometimes see on the loading screen claims that you can use the same type of weapon on both bars and swap to it quickly to use of skills on 2nd bar - the lack of restriction in that regard also suggests that this system wasn't strictly designed for a role change.

Shaun98ca2

midnight_tea wrote: »

Im overly confident Weapon Swap was meant for a role change during combat all signs point towards that and I probably even read somewhere from developers during beta what their intent was with Weapon Swap.

Actually, one of the advices we sometimes see on the loading screen claims that you can use the same type of weapon on both bars and swap to it quickly to use of skills on 2nd bar - the lack of restriction in that regard also suggests that this system wasn't strictly designed for a role change.

Well you can change roles and keep the same weapon type IE DPS Restro Staff to Healer Restro Staff. You could also go DPS 2 hander to Tank 2 hander.

The fact they gave us the option to keep the same weapon TYPE which requires a second weapon is whats throwing people off. If they required a different weapon type I believe people would be less confused by the situation. But the Devs didn't wants to take away freedom for incase those that wanted to use the same weapon type for 2 different builds could.

This has brought a lot of people to simply see the Weapon Swap as an arbitrary function to get access to their "2nd hotbar" when I believe that was simply never the case.

If you take the Weapon Swap OUT of the picture the system looks very frustrating to change builds and weapon types. It also forces hybrid builds as there is NO possible way for a DPS to quickly change what they are doing in combat if the healer dies or the tank dies.

Weapon Swap opens the system to allow people to change their during combat to fill the shoes of another role. Probably the reason we are allowed to play in such small groups. If the healer or tank dies another group member can easily weapon swap to a different build to "pick up the slack".

Thorough

This is an amazing way of looking at how to use the skill bars. I would be glad if they would let us use multiple action bars without switching weapons. Although, this thread makes the situation more malleable for me to practice and understand!

Shaun98ca2

Aimeryan wrote: »

Although the intention of this thread is not to talk about the issues surrounding the weapon swap (there are other threads dedicated to this), I will say that the issues are largely to do with consistency of queueing.

If you try to use any ability, you will queue the ability to perform as soon as possible. If you are currently doing nothing, or performing a light attack, that ability will be used immediately (because this is as soon as possible in this case). If you are performing another ability at the time, the ability that is queued will occur afterwards. This is the case no matter when you press the keybind for that action - it always queues, one way or another.

The weapon swap doesn't behave like this. It is an action, like the abilities are, but you are not always allowed to queue up the weapon swap to occur as soon as possible. If you are doing a heavy attack, it wont queue. If you are in the casting portion of an ability, it wont queue. However, if you are in the animation portion of an ability, it will queue. Similarly, the same with a light attack.

That inconsistency in when the queue can occur is what drives people mad. It is what causes frustration and much time wasting trying to get the weapon swap to perform. The fix is obvious - make it queue in the exact same manner that other actions queue.

Another issue is that it is very easy to "double" weapon swap, since the timeout on the action is almost non-existent. Add in that there is no way to know if the weapon swap is queued or not, and the fact it doesn't happen instantly, people will often hit the keybind again thinking they need to. What then happens is a misery of frustration as you see it swap and then swap back. The fix is again quite obvious - increase the timeout on the action to the point that the weapon swap will likely have already at least started to have occurred - say at least half a second.

~~~

If the weapon swap performed nicely, would there be a need for this thread? Well, maybe not.

If the weapon swap performed nicely then you could near guarantee access to your other five abilities within 0.5 seconds after the end of the current action. This means the delay between be able to use an ability currently on your bar and an ability on the other bar would only be at most 0.5 seconds.

Indeed, I get the feeling this was the intention of the developers given that they made the weapon swap perform very quickly and without cooldown. I would say the current difficultly in consistently queueing the weapon swap is more akin to a bug than a design choice (who would purposely design a UI action to be so frustrating?). However, I will follow my own advice here and say that I can't know the intention of the developers until they tell me.

I think you are seeing what a LOT of other people are seeing. I don't believe there is queing of abilities. This is probably also why certain people feel the usage of abilities isn't right either as they are trying to press the keys for everything too fast.

When you use the character animations for ability presses and use weapon swap after abilities the system works MUCH better. I can only recommend try slowing down for a while and see how the system feels.

I believe the intent of the system isn't who can press the buttons the fastest but who can press the correct button for the correct situation IE the game was meant to be played more tacticly than quickly.

With their being no "global cooldown" or at least visable one. Being that we are meant to be looking at the environment + character at all times using the character animations as a means to the "global cooldown" actually makes more sense.

CaptainSilverbrow

Khazaad wrote: »

I empathize greatly with this thread.

I also believe weapon swapping is supposed to offer an additional tactical element to the game. It's not meant to simply give you more keys so I understand why the act of swapping is involved.

...

Fundamentally, I do not believe animations are supposed to affect, influence, or interfere with gameplay in ANY (ANY!) video game unless the animation runs purposefully layered with one or more deliberately engineered functions. (a spell has a 3 second animation and a 3 second cast time.) Gathering for example is not meant to be instantaneous. I don't think swapping is meant to be instantaneous either but I don't believe the inconsistencies that interfere with it are deliberate either.

I agree, and I've adapted to the concept of the weapon swap whole-heartedly; I daresay like it as it is. But it clashes with other commands all the time. If I'm midswing, but desperate for a heal, I'm slamming the tilde key to access my de facto support bar, which secondarily functions as my ancillary Bow skills bar for situations I feel necessitate that tactical approach. I also don't concurrently own a god-tier PC capable of producing optimal gaming experiences at peak FPS; most players will not at any point beyond the "1,000,000 active accounts" mark, let alone a hundred thousand. As such, there are many occasions I would not have died if the swap command did not conflict with anything. Too often, I have to continually press a key in rapid procession to activate it.

FrauPerchta

@CaptainSilverbrow I have an i7 based "god box", staying on the bleeding edge is my hobby, and I still find "Too often, I have to continually press a key in rapid procession to activate it." To me it's one of the major annoying features of ESO